Kildale Moor, North Yorkshire. (Hard Route) 36km (22 Miles)

The northern tip of the North Yorkshire Moors offers a scintillating mix of heather moorland and forestry, broken up by quiet lanes that weave their way between tiny villages. It’s a great place to ride, with the trails as varied as the scenery, and as many different surfaces as you’re likely to meet anywhere. If 36km seems a little short, on this terrain, with over 1,000m of climbing thrown into the equation, it’ll probably be more than enough to satisfy most mtb’ers.
The proceedings commence with a steady forest climb onto Gisborough Moor. The stony singletrack that greets you hints at what’s to come, and then it’s a full pelt drop to Sleddale and a short climb back to the road. More full-speed descending follows, and this one gets really rough at the bottom; from here, it’s a little easy roadwork before the next climb towards Warren Farm. The drop to the infant River Leven picks the average up again but this is paid for with a short slog across pastures, before a rough and rubbly rodeo from Kildale Moor puts the smile back on your face.
From Baysdale Abbey it’s up again — road to start with and then a typical moorland trail that gains the ridgeline on Battersby Moor. The 200m drop from here is as varied as it gets — grass to rubble to tarmac, with a couple of good switchbacks thrown in there too. Then the road takes over again and leads nicely to the final leg, which climbs onto the Ayton Moors before traversing beneath the two biggest landmarks around: the Cook Memorial and Roseberry Topping. All that is left is one short, sweet and steep singletrack descent and a reverse of the forest trails that you climbed up on at the beginning.